Dune never struck me as being a particularly sciency book. Maybe this should be moved to general discussion, where it may get more attention...

Ok... my take:

Contains spoilers!

Some time in the future, there is a war called the Butlerian Jihad, of man against intelligent machines. Man won. The new order of the universe is based on navigators who use a drug called melange to find their way around hyperspace. Melange is found in only one place - Dune, and cannot be reproduced.

The political system of the galaxy is split up into various families. The ruling family seeks to play off the other two houses, the harkoneans and atreides off against each other to maintain it's hold on power.

Other group exist, including the bene gesserits, a group of women who conduct breeding experiments in the hope of producing a messiah. Paul - the main character is the product of the experiment.

Basically, the book is about paul's exploits when the harkoneans carry off a takeover of dune when the emperor grants the atreides management of the spice-harvests of dune. Eventually he realises his birthright - including ability to see the future, and pulls off a revolution that makes him the new emperor.

There are 6 books by Frank Herbert in the series:
Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune. I've only read up to Children of Dune... well I started reading God Emperor of Dune but quickly lost interest because it was really weird. If anyone has read it please let me know how they liked it.

HeeHee. Am currently reading Goodkind's multology. He springs a new menace every dozen pages or so. This used to be called the Van Vogt theory of writing. Does anybody remember van Vogt? World of Null-A? Players of Null-A?

Yeah the series does go down hill after Dune I got through half of his second book Dune:Messiah before I tossed it and I couldn't bring myself to read anymore of his books. His son also wrote 5 or 6 books continuing the series. These books took place before the first Dune book and I found them very depressing. They were a bit better than Dune:Messiah. However, Dune the first was excellent and you should try a couple of the books before you make any desicions.

Originally posted by resa3535 There are 6 books by Frank Herbert in the series:
Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune. I've only read up to Children of Dune... well I started reading God Emperor of Dune but quickly lost interest because it was really weird. If anyone has read it please let me know how they liked it.

yeah, frank herbert wrote 6 out of the planned 7.
dune
dune mesiah
children of dune
god emperor of dune
heretics of dune
chapterhouse dune

his son wrote 2 trilogies of prequels
Buterlian Jihad
Machine Crusade
Battle of Corrin (planned for September 2004)

House Atreides
House harnoken
House Corrin

overall, the two prequel trilogies are really good. dune is amazing, but the sequels go downhill. it talks about reanimating people through cloning and other weird stuff. i read the whole series, and the last 2 are accually pretty good.
hope this helps

Since we've slid into fantasy, let me recommend Terry Goodkind's long series that begins with "Wizard's First Rule'. Sometimes I'm tempted to throw the book across the room, and I nicknamed him Terry Badunkind for the things he puts his characters through, but his characterization and storytelling skills are topnotch (better than Jordan's, IMHO) and I always stick it out to the finish.

Staff: Mentor

Read all of Terry Goodkind's books. He puts more "sexuality" in his books than Jordan, although, Jordan's last few books have had more along these lines than at first. I kind of liked the innocence of the first Wheel of Time books, though. Nynaeve would not approve of what Elayne, Min & Aviendha have done. ;)

Originally posted by Evo Have you read "The Belgariad" by David Eddings? Anything in that series is good (except I don't care about the later writings on Polgara)

I read David Eddings's books when I was 13 and that was when I started to get really interested in fantasy (sparked off by reading both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at 11). I have since kind of outgrown the series but I thought it was a good starting point for young (preteens), aspiring fantasy-enthusiasts. The Belgariad was a fine series. The Malloreon didn't do too badly either, but I was starting to get tired of the characters by that time. I also own copies of Belgarath the Sorcerer, Polgara the Sorceress and the Rivan Codex but I am yet to read Pol's biography (not that I resent her or anything). BTW, what is it that makes you spurn Polgara?